The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL Goalie Tiers: is Shesterkin or Hellebuyck No. 1?

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

On a special edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, the guys discuss Jesse’s 2025-26 NHL Goalie Tiers, a comprehensive ranking based on an anonymous poll of some of the brightest minds in goaltending in an attempt to sort the league’s netminders by true talent.Hosts: Max Bultman and Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Jesse Granger for a special episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. Jesse's goalie tiers story came out this week. Always a really good read to start the season. And Jesse, before we dive into this, because there's a lot of interesting stuff in this, I want you to tell everyone a little bit about how these come together. You put together a panel of goalie coaches, retired goalies, much in the similar vein to Mike Sandow's quarterback tiers. and you have them rank these guys,

tier these guys for them, and you kind of, you average it out? Or did you move them after that at all? Yeah. So the way it works is it is inspired by Mike Sandoz's quarterback tiers. Craig Custins was doing the goalie tiers before I was, even before I even worked at the athletic. But I've tried to put my own spin on it.

When Craig Custins was doing it, it was obviously great. And honestly, it was my favorite thing to read on the athletic before I worked here. But it was mostly GMs and head coaches. and just to be frank, those guys don't know what they're talking about. I mean, obviously they do, but they don't. No one understands goalies except goalies is what you're getting at, which we would all agree with. Yeah, there is a very specific trained eye set of people in the world.

And there's about 20 of them that no goalies better than anyone in the world. And I try to get as many of those people as I can. This year's panel was 11 of them. It was eight goalie coaches. Some of them are current NHL goalie coaches. Some of them are former NHL goalie coaches who now work with goalies, privately in the summer, and a few of them are retired goleys who had long, successful NHL careers. So I ask all these people, I take my 38 goalies. Last year, it was 32. There were

some complaints that there weren't a couple of goalies in there that played a bunch of games. So this year I added, there were a few teams where we take two goalies. And I asked this panel to go through every single one of these 38 goalies and give them a score of one through five, one being the best, elite, five being the worst. And then I take all those scores. I average amount. I create a ranking based on that average, one through 38, break them into five different tiers. And to me, the coolest part about it isn't just the scores themselves, but it's the, like, the quotes that I get to put in there. They're all anonymous so they can be as honest as they want. And you get some really honest, detailed feedback about not just how good these goalies are,

but maybe what separates different goalies, who plays different styles, what they do well, what they don't do well. So to me, I look at it as kind of like a Wikipedia of the 38 best goalies in the world going into this season. It is truly like an invaluable resource for if you want to understand let's say your team's goalie is going through a slump. You can pull up goalie tiers and look in there and see if you can figure out like what is this guy's weakness. Why is he, I think he should be better than this, but he's, you know, this is happening. Usually your answer is probably in this story somewhere. At least someone has alluded to it, right, of what teams like about a guy, what they worry about with a guy. So the feedback really is the key. And I want to start on that note, there is

four goalies in this top tier. I don't think anyone's going to be surprised to see any of their names. Only one of them is unanimous at a 1.00. I think the other three were all 1.09. So, it's really only like one dissenter if my quick math, you know, helps me there. Igor Shasturkin is the only one. Why is Shasturkin just that slight sliver above, even like a Connor Hellebuck, who is the reigning Vezina winner? And I think would be my automatic answer for who's the best goalie in the world. Yeah, and it's, and not only that, but it's two years in a row. I've done this, this experiment two years, and Schisturkin is the only one who has gotten solid ones across the board, and he's done it both years in a row without getting a single two grade by anyone. And it's

because there are no flaws in his game. I mean, you look at Connor Hellebuck, and there aren't any flaws, except for that one that everybody wants to talk about constantly, and that is the struggles in the playoffs. And one of the reasons I like getting so many of these goalie coaches is because everybody has their own preferences. Like some goalie coaches, it can be that way with style. Some goalie coaches like big blocking goalies that use positioning and just let the puck hit him. Some like smaller, more athletic, more acrobatic goalies. But also some goalie coaches want consistency. That is Connor Hellebuck. You are going to get the same thing out of him every night. It doesn't matter what team you put him behind. It doesn't matter what system he's playing. It doesn't matter what night of the

week it is. You're getting the same thing from Connor Hellebuck all year long. Some coaches prefer the big game performer. Jordan Bennington's a great example. He may not have the consistency over an 82 game schedule that Connor Hellebuck can, but when there's a big game, there are few, there are a few goalies you want in the net more than Jordan Bittington. So the one two that that Connor Hellebuck got was a guy who really cares about playoff performances. And there's some nerves around him in the playoffs. And I think they're justified. I've been saying we shouldn't be holding that against Connor Hellebuck for the last year, but after it happened again in this postseason, and it happened so dramatically, and especially the fact that it was on the road.

I see why there are concerns that he needs to perform in these big games, despite obviously being the most consistent goalie in this generation. Like, I don't think anybody would argue that. But Igor Shasturken, back to him to what sets him apart is not only has he been amazing, and he's done it behind a team that's probably not as good defensively as these other elite tier goalies, like the other three are Babrovsky, Vasilevsky, and Hellebuck. I think everybody would agree that they probably all have better defenses and better teams in front of him.

Igor Shostirken is consistently amazing while facing, he faced more high-danger shots than any goalie in the league last year. And his stats are still exemplary. And then you add on the fact that when I ask these goalie coaches at the end, okay, who's the best goalie in the world? They all go to his playoff performances. Like the dude is a 9-30 in the playoffs every time.

We didn't get to see it last year because the Rangers were so bad. But when Igor Shostirkin has played in the playoffs, he's been the best goalie in the world in that sample that we've got. So very, very hard to find a hole in his game. What's interesting to me about Bobrovsky also being in that tier. I think if you had just had me guess, I think I'd have come up with the top three, maybe not in order, but I'd have Bobrovsky at the top of the top three. And I probably would have Bobrovsky at the top of the next tier.

Is it the playoff success? I mean, there was a time when he was when he was Connor Hellebuck, frankly. Yeah. He was this Vesina winning goalie who you didn't know if you could count on in May and June. So is it the playoff success? What is it that has put Bobrovsky in with those other guys? It's the playoff success and it's the ceiling. Like when Bobrovsky is on, the game's over.

You lost. Like it doesn't matter what happened with the other teams. Like his ceiling, compare him to Jake Ottinger, who is the highest goalie in the next tier. To me, when Jake Ottinger's on his A game, you can still beat him. Like it's not going to be easy, but his ceiling isn't as high as Sergey Bobrovsky. And that's just athleticism, his creativity, the way he finds ways to make saves in crazy situations.

And I think, like, one of the retired goleys, one of the quotes in the story was, yeah, he's got the cups and the Vezina's. But if you take that away and just watch him play goalie, it's clear that he's like a tier one goalie. Like, just watch him play. And the acrobatics, the athleticism, the sheer ceiling he has that when Sergey Bobrovsky wakes up that day and is having a good day, you've lost the hockey game if you're playing against 10. him because he's just so good. So that was really what set the tier one guys apart from the high tier two guys was the panel felt that their ability to elevate the play in front of them, transcend the play in front of them, and really single-handedly win a game. And Babrovsky, obviously, when he's on, he fits into that. He doesn't do it as consistent as the other three.

I will say that. It's interesting to me because he has only gotten, he's only had Vezen of votes, let alone winning it. Only Veson of votes in one season since 2019. So like that, I think kind of, and, you know, the voters for the Vesina, right? That's the general managers, I believe. Yep. Right. So like you talked about, right, like goalies, no goalies best. I think that is really important to what we're talking about here.

It's like there is a quality to when you watch him for the people who know him that is registering with them. And I think that's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, he's, and he's fun to watch too. They don't make him like Sergey Babrovsky anymore. He'll still throw out a pad stack every once in a while, a windmill glove save. He's fun to watch. Is he a victim?

reputationally of the of the teams he's played behind, do you think? Maybe. I do think that that whole situation where he got paid that huge contract and went to Florida, people still hold that over him. I think that the Panthers were not very good then, and I think that the pressure of that contract and you're going to be the savior, I think he didn't handle it well. And he's gotten better, the mental game. He's sharpened the details of his game. And the team in front of him, probably most importantly, the team in front of him got better and he's been a stud since then. I do think that early on, and especially like for a few years there, you would ask a

random hockey fan, what's the worst contract in the league? Most people would probably say Sergey Mabrovsky. I think the Panthers have been happy to pay him that $10 million a year for the past few seasons. Whenever I talk goalies with people, I always like to say there's six to 10 goalies in the league that are just bankable. If you have one of them, you know, maybe not exactly what you're getting. every single game, but over a month stretch, over a season stretch, you know what you're getting from those guys. So right on cue, the second tier takes us from number five, which is Jake

Ottinger, all the way down through number 10. It includes Ilya Sorokin, Jordan Bennington, Jeremy Swainman, UC Soros, Dustin Wolfe. The two names in that list that I was a little surprised were in it were Bennington and Wolf for different reasons. Binnington, I think we all know what he looks. Speaking of sealing, like we know what Jordan Binnington's ceiling is like. But there's consistency issues still there. And then Dustin Wolf just, it's kind of come out of note, like for a second year goal tender to be that high, that was alarm bells for me. Not in a negative way, but just like, holy cow. So those two, what did they do to get themselves included into that tier that includes your Ottingers, your Sorokans, guys who I would say are absolutely in that

bankable class. Yeah, Jordan Bennington is certainly not the guy you know what you're going to get every night. There's, and, and I think that part of the reason he ends up in this tier this specific year is he almost needs to, like, he needs the pressure. He needs the moment in order to, to, like, to play his best hockey. And I don't, I don't want to say he gets bored in the regular season, but that's what it looks like. It just looks like he's not as engaged. He's not quite as into the play. And this year, you look at last year, he has the Four Nations gold medal, and he's still riding high off that. This year is an Olympic year. You know the beginning half of the year. He's going to be wanting to prove himself to be that starter for Canada, especially with some Canadian goalies, really,

like McKenzie Blackwood, Logan Thompson. There have been some Sam Montembo. There have been a lot of Canadian goalies that have played well since that four nations that are trying to take that mantle. And then I think most expect him to play well in the Olympics, and they think he can ride the high off of that. Combine that with the fact that I had multiple goalie coaches tell me they expect St. Louis to be one of the best defensive teams in the league this year. They were. after Montgomery took over last year, and they think that he's had a whole offseason to install that, that defensive system that they had in Boston that made Jeremy Swayman and

Linus Olmark Vezina candidates. They think that that combination with the fact that Binnington is going to, it's a big year for him. I had multiple people say, it wouldn't surprise me if he's in the Ves in a conversation, which is not something you usually say about Jordan Baintington. He's not the type to put up big numbers over, over 82 games. But they do think that there's a chance he does this year

because it just seems like all the pieces are fitting in. and if the blues are good defensively, that obviously is going to allow him to put up some big numbers. Dustin Wolf, obviously, very different circumstances. For him, it's the eye test. He couldn't have passed it with flying color. Like he could not have passed the eye test any better. Like you said, there is some hesitancy with young goalies.

If you look at most of the goalies, his age on this list, they're way down the list. Even that's super talented ones like Yaroslav Ascarov, Spencer Knight, Lukash Dostal in Anaheim didn't quite make it up there, despite having a really great first season as a starter. The reason there's the buy-in for Wolf after only one year is he just does so many things spectacularly well. And I think what he does well fits today's NHL, maybe better than any goal we've seen coming to the league in the last few years.

And I say that he's just fast. And it's not just, he doesn't just skate fast. He reacts fast. He reads the play quickly. He has quick hands. He has quick feet. He gets into his inside edges quickly. He pops in and out of his post-integrations.

his RVH faster than any goal in the league. He just is, I wrote this last year at one point. I said, do you ever listen to your podcast and you like hit the one and a half speed so you can like get through it faster? Dustin Wolf plays hockey at one and a half speed. Like he looks like he's in fast forward. Everything he does is so fast. And in today's NHL where the players are getting faster and more skilled every day, every year,

I think that's the kind of goal that you need. Now, would you prefer him to be a few inches taller? Of course you would. And that's some hesitant. There is still some hesitancy that maybe the league will figure out how to score on him because he's smaller. But look, people have been doubting this kid his entire career. He was not a high draft pick because of his height. Nobody has been able to score on Dustin Wolf his entire life.

Every level he goes to, nobody can score on him. I think I'm just going to assume that that's going to continue. Here's what's interesting about that is I think there's a sense that Canada and even to some extent, the United States, that North America doesn't produce goalies like that. That if you want that kind of athleticism, if you want that kind of instinct, you got to go to Russia, you got to go to Europe,

that we over technicalize our goalies here. So Dustin Wolf, a little bit of a counterpoint to that. He certainly is. And it's funny, when you look at the other American goalies that are in these top tiers, they all fit exactly what you just said.

Like Connor Hellebuck, Jake Ottinger, Jeremy Swamon, they're all technical, read the play, big body, get myself in position. They're not the athletic react and save type of goalie the Dustin Wolf is.

So yeah, he very much goes against the grain of the top elite American goalies that we see in the NHL right now. All right, there's your top 10. Let's take a quick break right there. We're going to come back. And I think some of the juiciest stuff is on the back half of this list

and who was not in this top 10. All right, we're back and we're talking Jesse's goalie tiers. We are through the top 10. And there were two guys who was names I expected to see in that first. those first two tiers who I did not.

Those were Jacob Markstrom and Linus Allmark. When I talked about this being an encyclopedia, or you talked about it being an encyclopedia for goalies, and I mentioned, you know, you look for, oh, why isn't this guy higher? It's right there. For Allmark, that answer seems to be just workload concerns because this is a Vezan, a guy.

I would have put him in the bankable tier. Is it just that you don't know if you can get those 55, 60 games out of him? Yeah, I mean, there are goalie, like, I will say this. If there's something out there that goalie coaches put more emphasis on than the general public watching hockey, it's workload. They truly believe that like if you're like you look at the way Vasilevsky and Hellebuck carry their teams all year and they play all those games. They put so much emphasis on that. And they and they don't believe every goalie can do that. You see some goalie put up great stats with 35, 40 starts. And I think the general public is like, well, if you gave him 60, he'd probably do similar. Whereas I think, I think, goalie coaches are much more hesitant to like, if I haven't seen him prove that he can do this

and handle the stresses of being the guy every night, I'm less willing to give him that tier one, tier two status. And Olmark, even though he's got a Vezina, he didn't even play that many games that year. And then he came over to Ottawa last year. And I thought he was pretty good. He had some stretches where he wasn't as good. He was, I thought, pretty good in the playoffs, despite them not lasting long. But he didn't, he was hurt all year. He was banged up for most of the season. He didn't end up playing enough games. And I think there's still some goalie coaches out there that want to see him prove that he can be that workhorse guy before they give him a higher tier grade. And Markstrom is similar, but I think it's more just concerned with the age of

Markstrom. He's an older goalie, and he relies on his athleticism a lot. Like, when I watch Jacob Markstrom, I don't see this like precise technical goalie the way like Connor Hellebuck, most big goalies, even though he's a giant guy, he will flop around, he'll break out of his structure, he'll dive across, like, head first rather than, like, the traditional, like, butterfly slide. He's still a, he's kind of a throwback style goalie. And when you have a big guy who has an injury history and relies on his athleticism a lot, I think part of the reason he's lower in these tears is a little bit of hesitancy around his age. I will say that he got, like, everybody wanted to give him props for how good he was in the playoffs last year.

Again, similar to Olmark, the devils didn't go anywhere, but a couple coaches said the only reason that they were even remotely in that series against Carolina was because of how good Markstrom was. So he's a guy who's streaky. If you're playing against Jacob Markstrom in a playoff series and he's like lights out in game one, you're starting to get worried. If he gives up the first two shots of the series, it's like, okay, we got this. He's a very streaky goalie. When he gets hot, he's tough to score on. he's very rhythm-based and relies on his timing because he's he's not a great reader of the play. I mean, in comparison to the elite readers, I mean, these guys are all amazing readers of the play.

They made it to the NHL for a reason. But when you compare him to the elite of the elite, he relies more on his athleticism than some do. I think with Allmark, just to go back to him, though, it's like, that's what's interesting with the workload questions. Like, the GMs gave him the Vezina in a year where he didn't start 50 games, right? So clearly they're not worried about that. Like when they're deciding, like, who's the most impactful best goalie in the league, you don't have to be a 60 start guy for them. Yeah, it's, I will say this. That year, I'm typically more on the side of you need to play more games.

But if you're going to make an exception, the guy better be in another universe statistically for the rest of the goalies. And he was. Like the gap between Olmark and everybody else when you look at like the goal saved above expected. This is 938 was the same percentage. Yeah. And his goal saved above expected were through the freaking roof. So, I mean, he built that gap between himself and the field to kind of like, like, I'm all right with giving him that Vezina because he was just so much better, even though he didn't play quite as many games as some of the top guys. I watched him. He had a couple of games against Detroit where he was just unbeatable. Like it was, he won them those games. And to me, that's the all mark that sticks in my head is the guy who, you know, on any given night can be, I think as good as any goalie in the world at his best. He's a great goalie. And I think that he proved a lot to to us and to himself.

self last year. I think a lot of people were very curious how he would look because in Buffalo, he was he was kind of coming up in the league still. He looked good, but not great. His stats weren't very good. And then you go to Boston where every goalie succeeds and you're kind of insulated. And there was some wonder like, okay, you're going to Ottawa, a team that you're really going to have to carry. Like, you have to help be part of the change of the culture of that team and get the playoffs. And he did it. He did it. So I think he answered a lot of questions and maybe he takes another step this year. The name of Tier 3 is fitting for this conversation, right? It is strong. tandem starters, really good starter, but you're going to want a good backup to him. Another guy who's

in that tier is a guy you know extremely well there in Vegas. That's Aiden Hill. Another guy, you know, I think he's in the right tier. I just thought I might see him a few places higher on this list. What do you think is keeping Aden Hill from being like a consensus top 15 goalie right now? I think he still doesn't get enough credit for that cup run. The Golden Knights were incredible defensively, and yes, Laurent Bersois was on his way to, like he was leading them to the cup before he got hurt and then Aiden Hill comes in and I think because of those two things, he's kind of seen as like the product of his environment in that. And he is to a degree, but Aiden Hill made some huge saves. And he was like a 930 goalie, basically the entire playoffs. And I don't think, so I will say that.

I don't think he gets quite enough credit for what he did to win that cup. There aren't many current goalies in the league that have won the cup. And he's one of them. So I think he deserves more credit for that. The other thing is last year he finally hit that 50 game mark. But prior to that, his whole career had basically been injured. That was the story of his career. It was injury problems. He was highly thought of as a prospect in Arizona, but he never really played enough to make that, like, to take that step and be an NHL guy every night.

Then they trade him to San Jose. And the sharks traded quite a bit to get him. And they wanted him to be their guy, but he was hurt. He was banged up. And they ended up with a really crowded goalie room that year. And they traded Hill to Vegas for basically nothing because they thought they were going to lose him on waivers anyways. and then he ends up being a Stanley Cup winning goalie who gets $6 million a year for six years.

It's just he just hasn't proven that he can be a workhorse for the entire season. I think last year was a big step. If he can do it again this year and play 50 games again, then I think maybe he will climb up these rankings. But he's a guy who he doesn't flash athleticism when you watch him. He's a big goalie who uses his angles well. The Golden Knights play a solid zone defense that kind of gives up predictable. Like he knows where the shots are coming from. and he's really good at getting to those spots early and making the saves look really easy.

And then they don't end up looking all that impressive visually to us on the TV. But these goalie coaches that are watching them, like several of them were a little higher on Naden Hill. And they were impressed with how he gets to his spots on time to make saves look easier. The thing that bothers me about that line of discourse around goalies, and I have this conversation to people about Chris Osgood. Because I think Chris Osgood should probably be in the Hall of Fame for what his resume is, for the things he's accomplished. they people want to knock goalies that play on good teams they're like oh look at what he had in front of him I'm sorry does the last I checked the goal is the only guy that plays the whole game like are we really saying that on these great teams the only guy who gets like you know knocked for that we don't say jack Ikel shouldn't win the MVP

because he's not a good team like Aiden Hill plays more minutes than anybody on the Vegas golden nights yep and like Marty Brodur that's the same argument against him being one of the greats I had a goalie coach say something it was kind of in the relation to Marty Burdur but all also talking about current goalies. And it's like sometimes it can be harder to win two to one than it is to like you're on a bad team and you lose five to four or whatever. Like there's no pressure on you. Like you ever, you, you know if you give up a bad one like a really like a really like a leaky goal that you know you shouldn't give up. Well, I'm going to have 20 more opportunities in this game to turn the narrative back in my favor. I'm going to make some big saves. And even if we

lose this game, nobody's going to blame me. Whereas when you're Marty Broder back there and you're facing 18 shots a game, it's like your your margin for error is so small. And that pressure is different. And I agree with you. It is a skill to be able to win behind a good team and not make those mistakes and still be able to show your talent in a limited opportunity setting where the mistakes are magnified. Think about the difference in how we talk about Stuart Skinner, who like we talk about him as oh, you know, when he's hot, he's hot and when he's not, he's not.

But, you know, when he gets hot, like he's, you know, as good as anybody kind of thing in the playoffs. Maybe not as good as anybody. But, you know, so you can steal games for you if you need to. and how we talk about every goalie who's played for the Carolina hurricane since I've been covering the NHL, right? Like, it's like the hurricanes, all we ever talk about is like how they don't have a goalie. And if Anderson has a good game, I mean, and I'm guilty of this because I do think the Carolina system is just so, you know, singular in the way it's able to smother teams, stifle teams. But then like he lets in one bad goal because he's seen three shots in 19 minutes and it's like, this guy sucks.

They're not going to win if they don't go anywhere. Like, that's how we talk about those guys. It's really not fair. It's not easy. And like in a much lower level, like I play beer league. I have my best games when I play on bad teams and face 40 shots. Like, that's when I feel like I'm goaltending the best. And then I play on a good team where I face 15 shots and I usually don't play as well.

And that's, and like, that's every level of hockey all the way up. It is not a given that you're just going to play well behind a good team. And it's just easy to do. Absolutely. Here's a guy who has played on some rock. teams. We're going to jump down a tier here now into tier four, which is unproven or tandem goalies. I think a guy who has played on a rough team the last several years in Anaheim and who was going into a very uncertain situation, we'll say, in Detroit this year is John Gibson.

He's seen a lot of pucks when he's played, but I think this is a guy who, even four years ago, we all would have been shocked to see in this tier. How much of a temporary stay could this be for John Gibson or is this the trajectory? The unanimous opinion on John Gibson amongst pretty much everyone I talked to is, I have no idea how this is going to go. Because of how bad the ducks were in front of him, we haven't seen him play meaningful games in a very long time. I do think that the ducks were so bad that I think John Gibson started picking up bad

habits because you have to cheat plays in order to make saves playing behind that team. you're not making your reads correctly. And when I say that, like, for listeners out there, like, there's a two-on-one, you have to play the shooter as the goalie. Your defenseman has the pass. You're focused on the shooter. You're staying square to him. You're maintaining your depth as if he's going to shoot a puck.

But when you're John Gibson and you've played that two-on-one 100 times and your defenseman lets the pass through and it's a wide open backdoor goal, 90 of them, it's just human nature that you're going to start backing into your goal a little further. You're going to start flattening out along your goal line, preparing for that butterfly slide across. You're going to start cheating the game in order to, and that's like a very black and white situation that's like easy to explain. But that's happening all over the ice. When the puck's at the point, he's afraid that there's a guy on the back door. There's so many reeds that he's trying to make. It's overcomplicated and you start cheating. And the question is,

if he's been doing that as long as he's been doing it, can you just suddenly get out of those habits and become the goalie that you used to be when you were playing confidently, when you were when you were not cheating the game, when you were reading it correctly. He's a bit of an old school guy, kind of like Markstrom. He'll do like a little half butterfly when you shoot it at him. Like, you don't see that out of the 20-year-old goalies these days. So there are a lot of question marks. And like most of the opinions of these goalie coaches and retired goalies was,

I can't wait to see what happens in Detroit because I have no idea what's going to have. Like there is, like they almost all left the window open for John Gibson still being a really good goalie and being the answer that Detroit is looking for in net and being the guy that can maybe help them push, get over that hump and into the playoffs again. But very few of them have that, that think that that is what's going to happen. They're like,

that could happen, but also it could be a total disaster. It's going to be super interesting. He was one of the most, he's probably the most puzzling goalie of the 38 that I pulled these panelists about. And part of the reason that he's so puzzling is he's 32. Like,

like he seems like he's 37. for how long he's been a fixture of like the top echelon of goal tending. And then the arc he's had, you know, you would think that it was like, oh, he hit a cliff at like 31, 32. No, that happened at 27 because the ducks got bad. And 32 year old goalings are still really good. I don't think anyone's afraid to have a 32 year old goalie. 100%. And when he's at his, I mean, we saw last year when the ducks got a little better defensively, now he was, the injuries are a problem.

It seemed like he couldn't go two starts without getting an injury last year. But when he was on the ice, he looked very good. That was the best he's looked in probably five years. So maybe he's got it. I'm as just a goalie fan and someone who's been begging to save John Gibson from Anaheim for years, I am pumped to see how he plays in Detroit this year. All right. So you have a really strong track record on our athletic hockey show of making some calls on goalies

that have worked out just exceptionally well. So no pressure here, but a lot of pressure. Pull up the crystal ball. Give me two goalies on your list who will be at least one tier higher the next time you do this exercise. Well, we just talked about how bad the ducks have been, and we saw a guy come in and he wasn't expected to be a starter, even in training camp. And then John Gibson has the emergency appendectamine. They throw Lukash Dostal in there. He's been in the NHL, but he's been a backup with limited opportunity. He suddenly is thrust into that number one role and just succeeded from the get-go and played better than John Gibson has,

this bad team for several years and just came in and like I think he had the highest goal saved above expected of any goalie to play behind the team that allowed the most expected goals in the league like in forever very very impressive debut as a number one goalie for do stahl and if it hadn't just been for that like basically the only thing holding him back from being in tier one or tier two is the fact that he's only done at once and there's always some hesitation but when you talk to these goalie coaches they all say like the film says that this is not a fluke. We see it all the time where a goalie comes in the league. They have an amazing season, and then they just disappear. They're a one-hit wonder. They just were feeling it that year.

Teams start to get film on them. They find ways to beat them. And all of a sudden, they're not good anymore. These goalie coaches all told me, the film says he's here to stay. He reads the game incredibly well. He's super patient on his edges. He's not biting on fakes. You watch him, especially like when you get a saved dose all makes, when you get the camera from behind the net, you really see how he's predicting these passes. Like the shooter opens their stick to pass it, and he's already at the spot that the guy's going to get the puck at, just waiting. He's basically standing there waiting for the puck to get there so they can fire it at him.

His reads are super, super impressive. I think he's going to have another big year. If Quinville can get the ducks playing a little more structured, make it a little easier to read, we were talking about how tough it is to read for Gibson. If they make it a little easier on Dostal, he's going to be even better. Several people told me they think he can be like a top five goalie in the NHL for the rest of his career. he might even win some Vazanas if the Ducks ever get a good defense in front of him.

So Dostal is first on the list. And second on the list is a guy in Columbus, who I know the Blue Jackets fans are excited about. I have been yelling this guy's name from rooftops for two seasons now. I've been saying, how are the Blue Jackets not getting Jetgreaves in the NHL? The Blue Jackets are obviously struggling with Elvis Mers-Likins. That contract hasn't worked out. De Niel Teresov hadn't panned out either. and Jetgreaves would come up for a game or two,

and every time he did, he looks spectacular. A lot of the same attributes that I talked about Dustin Wolf. He's a little undersized, but he's super athletic. He's twitchy. He's quick. He's got great edges. He is built for the fast NHL in 2025, and I'm super excited.

When they traded Terrace off to Florida, I made what I thought was a hot take at the time. I was like, by the end of the season, I think Jet Grieves is the number one goalie. I think he takes Elvis Mersleekin's job. I think he might have already done it. The season hasn't even started, and Jetgreaves might be the number one goalie for the Blue Jackets. They're certainly going to give him every opportunity to prove that he's the guy.

Wouldn't surprise me. I bet there are hockey fans out there that don't even know Jetgreaves exist because he hasn't had that many opportunities in the NHL. By the end of this season, that number will be zero. Everyone who watches hockey will know Jetgreaves name. I think he's going to have a big year. All right. So Greaves right now, for those who have not yet read the article, which you should. Jack Greaves is number 33. He's in that tier four, unproven or tandem goals. So that would be him potentially moving up into tier three. And Dostal, that's why I think Dostal is an interesting call for me. He's already really high on this list.

He's tied for 12th. He's right up against the ceiling of tier three. So that would put him into that number two tier, which is called the high-level starter tier. I like both calls. Those are really good, Jesse. Yeah, Dostal, like, I genuinely think in a year from now, you could be thinking of him in the same vein as Otenger, Sorokin,

like the studs that we think of, like the top goalies in the league. I think Dostal has that potential. All right, great stuff from Jesse. If you haven't read the story yet, go do it. 2025, 26, NHL goalie tiers. Really good stuff in there. Thanks for listening to us today. And thanks for joining us, Jesse.